


wash it away

by rosebarsoap



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Bathtubs, F/M, pamper the mountain man, soft bathing content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 03:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19455730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosebarsoap/pseuds/rosebarsoap
Summary: “Muriel?”He startles. Eleanor blinks up at him, head tilted in question.“Nadia asked us if we… erm… If we’d like to use her bath chambers.”If Muriel wasn’t red in the face then, he sure is now.(fan apprentice eleanor belongs to sablestine on tumblr!)





	wash it away

It’s a long trek back to the palace, but somehow, Eleanor made it all the way up the stairs, huffing and puffing as she climbs up the last one. She wipes her brow with the back of her hand and turns around, staring out over the entirety of Vesuvia spread out across the horizon, when she hears her companion clear his throat next to her. He made it up the stairs without so much as breaking a sweat.

“Do we have to come here.”

Muriel stares at a spot over Eleanor’s shoulder, gaze dragging up and over the elaborate palace towers. He doesn’t quite grimace, but the ghost of one pulls the corners of his lips down and furrows his thick brows. She smiles, standing up on her toes to look at him proper.

“We don’t have to stay for long if you don’t want to,” she reassures, folding her hands behind her back. “We just have to tell Nadia what we found and then we can leave.”

He looks down at her, meeting warm amber eyes that watch him carefully, looking for any sign of discomfort. Eleanor smiles again, tilting her head towards the slowly opening palace gates in invitation; Muriel sighs and follows after her. She knows it’s not the setting sun that makes his cheeks go pink.

The chamberlain meets them inside and ushers them into the dining room. Nadia greets them warmly as they sit down, Muriel on Eleanor’s right with Nadia at the head of the table on her left. A servant fills their glasses with water and stands at the ready with two others that nervously stare at Muriel, who stares in turn at his glass. Eleanor catches a glance of his shaky hands mid-conversation with Nadia; she gently touches her fingertips to his forearm, light but comforting. Muriel no longer flinches from it, but he looks intently down at where her fingers meet his arm long after she removes them. 

“Eleanor, Muriel. I trust you’ve found some more information about my not-quite dead ex-husband.” Nadia sips delicately from her wine goblet and levels ruby eyes on Eleanor. 

“We’ve found a few tidbits that seem useful,” she replies with a nod. “Thanks to Muriel’s help in the forest, we managed to corner him and get some information.”

Nadia turns to Muriel, who looks like he wants to drown himself in his water glass. 

“Thank you for helping, Muriel,” she says kindly, leaning back as one of the servants places a plate of steaming fish in front of her. “I appreciate your assistance in the matter. What did you find?” 

Eleanor jumps into an explanation as a servant slides a plate of smoked eel Muriel’s way. He tries a small, grateful nod and the servant grins at him, any and all fear of the large man sitting at the Countess’s dining table dissipating as he gingerly tucks into his meal. He doesn’t join in much on the conversation— just the occasional affirming nod of his head or comment on parts of the forest— as Eleanor takes the reins, checking on him every few minutes with a sidelong glance. She informs Nadia of their encounter with Lucio, which, unfortunately, wasn’t the first; The Countess knows about Muriel getting attacked when trying to save the Heart of the Forest, as Eleanor told her the first time they came up to the palace.

He still remembers her jumping in front of him, magic flaring like a shimmering mirror to shield them, her hair wild and loose from her hairband and he _adamantly_ refused to call her beautiful in that moment, but he _thought_ it—

“Muriel?”

He startles. Eleanor blinks up at him, head tilted in question.

“Nadia asked us if we… erm… If we’d like to use her bath chambers.”

If Muriel wasn’t red in the face _then_ , he sure is _now_. 

“Yes… I was saying, you both look exhausted from your escapades today,” Nadia says, interrupting the blush-fest. “I offer my private bath to my intrepid investigator and her… large friend.”

She waves a hand as Eleanor goes to thank her, smiling regally. “And besides, I have Masquerade preparations to finish this evening. I’ll make sure the two of you are _alone.”_

_“Nadia—!”_

Eleanor flushes scarlet as the Countess laughs teasingly, but she can’t help the embarrassed giggle that bubbles up from her chest. One could probably cook eggs on Muriel’s face from how hot it feels.

“May we, ah, talk about it alone for a moment?” Eleanor’s voice cuts through Muriel’s panicked thoughts as she turns her attention to Nadia, who nods and gestures for the servants to leave with her. Muriel watches Eleanor warily as she turns to him, her smile melting a little tension from his shoulders.

“Muriel, we don’t need to take Nadia’s offer if you’d rather go home. I know the Palace doesn’t hold the best memories for you, but…” She reaches out and takes his hand, slow and steady. 

“We could make some better ones, if you’d like.”

Eleanor’s so small between his fingers, but her strength radiates from her touch alone; Muriel wondered, sometimes, what Asra saw in her that made him pull so many strings, too many strings, but now he understands. Now he gets it, as his embarrassment tints red across his cheeks and neck, making his shoulders warm under his cloak. 

“I can ask for the wing to be closed off, if you’d like. That way it’s just you… and me. Together.”

Eleanor squeezes his hand lightly, looking up at him in wait of an answer. Something in her expression, something in her eyes reads hopeful, but like she already knows the answer is no. 

“… Okay.”

She blinks once, twice. Muriel can’t escape the smile that steals his ever-present frown away, as small as it is.

“Okay? Are you sure?”

Not really sure. But the way she beams at him makes him think he could, maybe, start saying yes more often.

“Yes.”

“Well, um. Wonderful! I’ll tell Nadia and explain what we’d like—”

Muriel’s still not used to the “we”, but it’s nice.

“— and we can, erm, go and… bathe. Mhm, yes, alright.”

Eleanor stands up and waits as Muriel slowly gets to his feet, and the two of them leave the dining hall behind. However, the one who greets them in the hall isn’t the Countess, but Portia, who lights up in recognition at Eleanor before her head cranes _slooooowly_ up to look at Muriel.

“Hi Eleanor! And hi Muriel— I wanted to say, thank you for making that cute little flower crown for Pepi! Could you make more of them, sometime? I’m afraid she managed to pull apart the last one.” Portia rolls her eyes in expense of her feline friend before she looks up at Muriel.

“… I guess.” He’s quiet, red-cheeked, and looks down at Portia for exactly one more second before choosing a lovely spot on the floor to stare at instead. Eleanor grins at her before she notices the pile of fabric under Portia’s arm, smooth and silky.

“Are these...?”

“Your robes! Milady said we’d need a specially-made one for Muriel since he’s so— well, _big.”_ She lowers her voice for the last bit of her sentence, but Eleanor knows Muriel heard it as his blush deepens in shade.

“These must have been made a while ago,” Eleanor muses, taking the robes from Portia and brushing her thumbs over the embroidered details. “Did you… know…?”

Portia winks. “Let’s say milady had a good feeling she would be right.”

Eleanor turns pink and stutters out a thank you. Muriel continues to stare at the floor, but behind his hair there’s the hint of a smile.

“Is there anything I can get for you two before you go in?” 

“Actually, if it wouldn’t be a bother…”

Muriel looks worriedly at the robes in her arms. Whispering, Eleanor asks Portia something that he doesn’t quite catch, but it makes both of them start giggling. Which can’t be good.

“Don’t you worry, Eleanor, I got it covered! I’ll make sure nobody bothers you two while you’re in there. I think that milady put some fresh soaps in there already, so there’s no need to fret.”

Portia leads Eleanor and Muriel to a quiet, near-abandoned wing on a different floor of the palace. She stops in front of a delicately carved marble door and files through her impressive ring of keys until she finds the right one. Unlocking the door and pulling it open with little visible effort, she beams up at them and regally waves an arm into the entrance.

“Your chambers await.”

— — — — — 

Nadia’s bath chamber isn’t new to Eleanor, but she _swears_ it got bigger than last time.

Sunset pastels pour in through the ceiling-to-floor window behind the frankly huge marble bathtub, steam rising from the water and mingling with outside’s colors. Eleanor gapes in awe and twists in a slow circle, studying every detail of the room before she glances at Muriel, who examines the bathing chamber with a less excited eye. She reaches forward and takes his hands hands in hers.

“It’s just you and me, remember? We’re alright.”

That’s right… It’s just him and her. Alone. About to, assumedly, bathe together. Muriel turns red.

“Are you warm in here? It is fairly warm, hm? We should, ah… Robes. Mhm.” Eleanor looks around the room until she spots what she’s looking for— folded into fourths and propped against a wall is a dividing screen.

“I’ll pop behind here and change,” Eleanor says, nodding at the screen, “And, um, you can… out here. If that’s alright with you.”

Muriel nods absentmindedly as Eleanor slips behind the screen. He hears her start fiddling with buttons and the telltale sound of fabric _flumph-ing_ to the floor and turns on his heel, facing the wall with his fists curled at his sides. He know she’ll be _covered,_ of course, with the robes Portia provided, but… This is too much. This is bathing— which he certainly hasn’t done much of, formally— but bathing _with_ someone is far more new. Far more panic-worthy. For a split second, he wants to leave; he wants to go back to his hut and never leave.

But he won’t leave Eleanor behind. 

Muriel hears her footsteps come from behind the screen and she comes to stand in front of him, looking up as he looks down… and promptly _away._ The robe, golden yellow with a thick band of embroidery around her waist, is _too much._

“Muriel? …We don’t have to if you’d rather not, since you haven’t changed.”

“… No. Um. I- I want to.”

He meets her eye and Eleanor smiles, gentle and warm and encouraging. She reaches out and takes his hand in both of hers, running her thumbs over his knuckles. 

“Well, how do we, erm… The cuffs. How do we get these off?”

Oh, right. He has to undress too.

Muriel looks down at his wrists, at the thick spiked cuffs and the bandages beneath. He isn’t quite sure himself; the cuffs are and ever-present reminder of what he was before. Asra offered to take them off once, but Muriel refused. He figured it’d keep people away if he stayed scary-looking.

Looking down at Eleanor as she turns his wrist this way and that, he realizes that didn’t work.

“Maybe… Oh! I could probably get it off with magic, if you’d like them off,” Eleanor muses, gaze flicking between him and the cuffs. “If you’d like me to. Otherwise they’ll get a wee bit soggy in the water.”

Muriel looks down at his hands, the cuffs, how Eleanor spreads her fingers around the spikes to avoid getting poked. He thinks for a long moment, then gives a small, barely-there nod. She smiles.

“This’ll only take a minute.”

She closes her eyes and holds Muriel’s wrists in the palms of her hands. He feels warmth, radiating and calming, both from Eleanor’s magic and how she purses her lips in the slightest pout when she concentrates. It’s… cute.

The cuffs slowly become loose; he manages to slide his hands out of them with ease. His arms feel lighter, somehow. Muriel looks down at his wrists, free of the shackles he broke from years before, and carefully rubs at the unfamiliar skin. Bandages still wind up his forearms, but he forgot what it was like, to feel at the vulnerable parts of his body. The parts clean of scars, of hurt, even if he still feels the aftershocks.

Eleanor reaches out, delicate fingertips brushing over his wrist— it’s instinct when he pulls back, twisting his arm so the delicate skin faces down. She flinches, and Muriel fears she’ll be upset… but she brings her hands back, holding them up to him palms-up in surrender. “It’s alright. I’m sorry if I startled you.” 

Muriel wonders how on earth such a patient woman could want _him,_ of all people.

“… Sorry.” He looks over her shoulder, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, but Eleanor slowly raises her hand and squeezes his arm, reassuring and kind.

“You’re okay. Don’t worry about it.” She gestures at his hands and he brings them up to meet hers in the middle, where she nods at the bandages and raises a brow.

“May I?”

“Yes.”

It’s unwrapping bandages. Ages-old gauze he should’ve thrown out months ago. It really shouldn’t feel as oddly intimate as it does. Eventually his wrists and arms are entirely bare; he feels her gaze drag furrows through his scars. He expects her to comment, to recoil. It’s been this long and he still doubts himself and her… feelings.

But Eleanor meets his eye and nods, as if to say she understands. She doesn’t say a word. Letting his robe slip between her fingers and into his outstretched ones, she studies the collar around his neck with a furrowed brow. 

“Is there any way to get it off?”

“I’ve… not taken it off.”

“Ever?”

He shakes his head. Ever.

“May I, erm… Take it off?”

He starts, but Eleanor’s quick to reassure that he doesn’t have to if he’s not comfortable; Muriel eventually nods, following as her hands pull him down to her level. Her hands hover over the collar for a moment and it feels warm, almost comforting, until she touches it with three fingers and it snaps open. His pulse jumps beneath her sudden touch.

“There we go.”

She puts the collar next to the cuffs on a side table, but Muriel doesn’t plan to put them back on any time soon. He feels naked without them, but… in a good way? He touches his collarbone, the skin foreign under his fingertips. Eleanor steps back, examines her handiwork. Muriel doesn’t miss how she flushes pink when he swallows, rubs the back of his neck.

“Well, um, I assume you can… disrobe the rest. Yourself. I’ll just—” Eleanor turns on her heel and faces the bath for a moment, giving Muriel his privacy, but before he fumbles with his (multiple) belts he watches her, just for a moment. She fiddles with her hair, pulling the band from behind her ears and putting it on the side table with his things, combs deft fingers through it. Her hair always looks so soft, Muriel thinks as he puts on his robe (a dark green, with similar embroidery to hers). Eleanor steps over the side of the bath and gets in; she lets out a quiet sigh of relief when she sinks into the water, staying at waist-level as she looks over the various bottles and jars Nadia has around the rim. She hums quizzically at each fancy label, sprinkling what looks to be bath salts into the water until a light blue steam rises from the surface. Turning around, she beams at the sight of him and nods down at the water swirling around her hips. 

“Fancy stuff, huh? Come see how good this smells, it’s really nice.”

Even if he’s nervous, one doesn’t need to tell him twice to get himself into the water next to her. Muriel stays standing; the displacement if he sits down will flood the chamber if he’s not careful. She glances between him and the water level, hums in realization, and drains a bit of it so he can get more comfortable. 

“There we go.” Eleanor scoots to allow him to sit, and for a moment, the two of them just sit there. Content. 

Well, until she seems to feel the overwhelming unease coming off of Muriel in waves. He’s staring down at his hands, scarlet in the face, and only looks up when Eleanor gently squeezes his arm. 

“What’s the matter?”

He’s not sure how to put it in words. This is nice and all, but he’s in the palace baths with only a bit of silk to cover his modesty. With Eleanor about half a foot away, similarly dressed, in the _palace baths_. He certainly didn’t expect this to happen when he woke up to Inanna licking his face clean.

“I, um. This is… Weird.”

Eleanor turns to him, smiling and squeezing his arm again.“I’d ask how, but I have a feeling I know. I understand, Muriel; it’s rather a lot to take on all at once, mhm?”

He nods. Even when he has his heavy cloak and shackles on, she sees straight through him. Eleanor stands— she’s still a head shorter than him, even as he sits— and picks an assortment of multicolor bottles, holding them under her arm.

“I know the palace isn’t your favorite place. But right here and now, it’s you and me and this lovely-smelling water. And all these fancy lotions and whatnot. Look at this: rose-scented shampoo made with _actual_ roses. Where does Nadia find these?”

She continues chattering about the bottles when it dawns on him: she’s trying to distract him from his discomfort. By talking about nothing, she’s actually doing something, and after a minute or two Muriel relaxes into the water, a small, comforted smile on his lips. She returns it with ease, keeping hold of a couple bottles when she comes near again.

“I found this one—” She shows him a bottle of shampoo, scented with peppermint. “— I can wash your hair with it, if you’d like. You’ll smell delightful afterwards.”

He stares at it, thinking.

“Does it really smell like that?” 

Eleanor laughs and it echoes around the chamber, making the tight knot in Muriel’s tense shoulders finally untie. She uncaps the bottle and sniffs, holding it in front of him. “See for yourself.”

He sniffs. Sure enough, it’s pretty damn minty.

“Huh. Stronger smell than I thought.”

“They’ve gotten rather clever with the scented stuff, hm?” She lightly taps his nose with the top of the bottle, holding back a giggle when Muriel’s eyes cross to see it. “Would you like your hair to smell like that too?”

Muriel nods— it’s a good smell. And he can’t really remember the last time his hair smelled of anything less than firewood and sweat, so this’ll be a nice change.

Eleanor leads him further into the bath (this thing really is _huge,_ he realizes) and gently pulls him down to kneel in front of her, and she pours water through his hair. She tilts his head back and holds it in her hands, careful not to let the water run past his brow, into his closed eyes. Threading her fingers through his hair, gently massaging the shampoo into his scalp, Eleanor’s touch is soft and the water is warm. The entire room smells like peppermint.

“This is… nice.”

It’s mumbled, but Muriel knows Eleanor heard him when she pauses rinsing his hair. He opens his eyes to find her looking down at him (for a change) and she smiles, the setting sun casting warm shadows on her face.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time, Muriel. Goodness knows you deserve it.”

She brushes her thumbs along his cheekbones, and he feels his face heat up at such a tender touch. The last of the shampoo rinses out and she moves to conditioner, focusing on the tips before carefully pouring water over them.

“There you go! Nice and clean,” she chuckles, helping Muriel sit up again. His wet hair hangs in his eyes and on instinct, he shakes his head like a dog to try and dry it out. Eleanor squeals and ducks for cover, but it’s not like she wasn’t wet already. Laughing and holding her hands up in surrender, she settles back into the bath as Muriel does the same. He finds himself watching her as she starts to wash her own hair, dunking underwater and coming back up with both her hair and her robe stuck to her shoulders. She goes for the bottle of rose-scented shampoo, but before she upends some onto her palm, Muriel takes her wrist.

“Um… Can I. Do that for you. Since you did it for— for me.”

She seems surprised, but hands him the bottle and grins. “If you _insist.”_

Muriel rolls his eyes, but there’s affection in there too. He gets a good amount into the middle of his hand (as Eleanor has just a bit more hair than he does) and starts lathering up. He’s thankfully off scot-free on the front of not-blinding-her-with-shampoo, but he feels too rough to do something like this. It’s quiet and delicate work that he’s not done before, so he does his best— and tries to copy everything Eleanor did for him, carefully running his fingers through her hair and rubbing the top of her head. He knows it’s not _quite_ the same, but when she hums happily and smiles up at him, he thinks he’s doing an okay job.

“You’re good at this, Muriel,” she murmurs, opening her eyes. “Thank you.”

“Um. N-No problem.” He flushes red when she snickers, but she reaches back and squeezes his arm affectionately. It’s quiet for a moment as he moves on to conditioner, twining strands of her hair around his fingers.

“We should bathe together more often, y’know.”

At _that_ he sputters, nearly dropping her head into his lap, and Eleanor snorts with laughter, a hand splayed on her chest as she catches her breath.

“I— you— hmph.” Muriel huffs, bottom lip jutting out as he tries to hide his pink cheeks. Eleanor dunks her head under to rinse the rest of the conditioner out and comes up facing him, gathering her hair into her hands and wringing out the water. The light catches in her hair and on the drops of water that linger on her skin, silhouetting her against the sunset through the window, and Muriel sits up straighter into the water as she grabs another bottle. Lotion, apparently, as she rubs it into her arms and shoulders. Wordlessly, she shakes the bottle at him in offering; he nods, because why not. If this is what makes Eleanor so soft, maybe it’ll work on him too.

He’s still not sure _why_ she decided to go with him, he thinks, as she carefully smooths the lotion onto his forearms. He doesn’t think he’ll ever really know. 

But when she leans up to press her lips to his forehead, a sudden warmth of affection rushes through him to the tips of his toes— and he’s quite happy she picked him, out of all of them.


End file.
